BOOK: The Imago Dei – Humanity Made in the Image of God

By Lucy Peppiatt | Amazon.com | 162 pages
Published in April of 2022

SUMMARY: The doctrine of the Image of God is like prayer, communion, or any other practice that has become perfunctory. We kind of know what it is and what it means, but the necessity and revolutionary nature of the practice or belief has dulled with time and repetition. In The Imago Dei: Humanity Made in the Image of God author, Lucy Peppiatt seeks to break the casual understanding of this indispensable doctrine by defining the three main perspectives, getting into the weeds by analyzing church fathers’ and theologians’ thoughts on the nuances of the doctrine, and finishing with a superb summary.

“The doctrine of the imago Dei, that human beings are created in the ‘image and likeness of God,’ is central to Christian life and practice and touches, perhaps even helps to form, every other doctrine of the Christian faith in one way or another,” Peppiatt writes.

Despite the centrality of the doctrine to the Christian faith, there is no consensus on what the doctrine means. Three main perspectives, substantionalist, functionalist, and relational, dominate the conversation with the former two being the most popular interpretations.

A substantionalist view says that being made in the image of God means that humans have a human attribute that is mirrored in an attribute of God. A functionalist perspective means that a command from God, such as to subdue and rule the earth, is a mark of being made in the image of God. The third perspective, relational, says being made in the image of God means a human’s ability to have a relationship with God is the distinction. Regardless of what view makes the most sense to you, all of them affect how we interact with others and the world.

“The idea that human beings bear the image of God can be extrapolated in a number of ways but is often used in a general sense to denote equality, unity, dignity and the sanctity of human life.”

Peppiatt dives into the nitty gritty of the doctrine in the middle of the book, touching on the differences between what being made in the image of Christ and being made in the image of the Trinity means. She compares and contrasts kingship, priesthood, and stewardship models. She ultimately asks a plethora of questions, that many times, do have not clear-cut answers. Is there a difference between image and likeness? If so, what are the implications? Does the substantionalist view reference the ability of humans to reason? Have moral judgment? Or the ability to repent? Was the image of God destroyed at the fall or was it maintained after the fall?  Does the relational view reference the “fittingness and capacity of a human being to be in a relationship with God, or in the nature of the relationship itself, or in both?” The sheer amount of information presented was overwhelming, but that, perhaps, was the point.

“It has become clear by now just how diverse the perspectives on the imago Dei really are, with many different emphases and nuances in relation to how we might understand what it means for human beings to be made in the image of God,” Peppiatt says. “We cannot resolve all the questions surrounding the imago Dei, and there will always be some element of the unknowable in relation to this topic.”

No matter what view you ascribe to, what does this mean for the average person? First, it means we must be in a relationship with God and other people.

“Jesus taught that to be made in His own image is to love God and love our neighbor. There is no understanding of being made in the image of Christ that does not entail relationship.”

Second, everyone is deserving of dignity and respect because God created them. There are no qualifications, tests, or requirements. It is a “great leveling” doctrine.

And finally, God is for us no matter what.

“The story of human beings made in the image of God is that even when we are not godlike in any way, and perhaps especially then, God is still for us.”

Ultimately this is a doctrine full of mystery requiring a healthy dose of humility.

“We know that it is a doctrine we must approach humbly: humbly because it confronts us with the truth that we cannot understand everything about this claim; neither have we understood how to live it out…I have been struck deeply by the mystery of it all,” Peppiatt concludes.

KEY QUOTE: “To have been created intentionally, imagined in the mind of God, and then brought into being communicates something profound about a person’s intrinsic worth. It speaks—you are loved; you are wanted; you are valued. Further to this, to have been created as some kind of reflection or embodiment of the divine serves only to strengthen the idea that human beings are of infinite worth and beauty.”

---

BONUS: Listen to Peppiatt (part I and part II) on the TheoDisc Podcast where she discusses her book.

BONUS II: Read the first 50 pages of the book on Google books.

DID YOU KNOW? Sunday to Saturday has a Good Reads page where we post all of the books we have read – even the ones that didn’t make the cut.

---

---